Posts Tagged ‘Dinner’

My first date* with my eventual husband, he cooked me dinner. When I came in, there was something simmering on the stove.

“Have you ever cooked risotto?” he asked.

I hadn’t. I hadn’t even heard of it, and it seemed to be a very fancy dinner.

In fact, risotto is quite simple, and it has become a regular fall back meal for me. There are infinite variations, so I can add vegetables to it and have a one-dish meal.

I never cook it with white wine, but when I make it plain I do add some lemon juice. Delish has a simple recipe that is much like mine. I never heat the broth separately, though, and I also use shallots instead of onion. I also cook more than twice what that recipe calls for so they are leftovers (you’ll see why in the next post!). The secret is stirring it until the starches come out and the rice is tender.

I always fall back on a maple vinegar sauce for chicken. My husband isn’t crazy about it just on plain baked chicken, but if I grill the chicken and mix it up with some greens and potatoes, it turns out pretty tasty. Last week also added an apple to it. You could also use leftover chicken.

I love the taste of real maple syrup, so this recipe is a favorite of mine. Even my son wanted more at dinner last night!

I have really been enjoying watching Rachel Ray’s shows, simply because she inspires me to think of dinner as a “meal” not just a “main dish.” Last night we made her chicken sausage balls. Becasue I couldn’t get chicken sausage, I made them with pork Italian sausage, which my husband really appreciated. With two pounds of meat, I only could make eight balls — the boccocini were rather large.

I would have liked more cheese per meatball, but I struggled to get it to stay together. Any secrets for improving that?

On the other hand, it was really very tasty with the tomato-pesto sauce. And it was very easy.

We normally cook and bake with boneless and skinless chicken thighs. It’s so much easier. This weekend we gave roast chicken a try. It was so tender and juicy compared to the other stuff! It did take some time to cook, but we could prepare the rest of the dinner while it cooked.

It still is more work to get the chicken off the bone in order to eat it, but it certainly turned out delicious. Do you think the end result of delicious roast chicken is worth the extra effort? Or do you, too, go with the boneless/skinless option?

I’m not sure where we got this recipe, but it’s so very simple one hardly needs it. The flavor comes from fresh rosemary, chopped and crushed and pressed in to the chicken, and a roasted garlic puree pressed on to the chicken during the end of cooking. Salt, pepper, and olive oil help too. (more…)